One of Victoria’s largest dams has reached full capacity and is spilling water for the first time in 26 years as rain continues to drench the state.
The Thomson Dam in West Gippsland, nearly a three-hour drive east of the city, holds more than half of Melbourne’s water supply.
“The reservoir is currently 100 per cent full and has reached the dam’s spillway for the first time since 1996,” Melbourne Water confirmed on Friday.
“Spillways are designed to safely transfer excess water during extreme weather events or during prolonged periods of rainfall that cause a reservoir to fill.”
The dam accounts for 60 per cent of Melbourne’s total water storage capacity.
Melbourne Water warned residents and businesses downstream of the dam to prepare for faster flows and higher levels in the Thomson River, which passes through towns including Walhalla and Sale before reaching the Gippsland Lakes.
The Thomson Dam in 2008.Credit:Craig Abraham
Melbourne Water said it had been managing water storage across its supply network by moving water between reservoirs and conducting controlled releases.
“Melbourne Water aims to have storages as full as possible before the start of future dry conditions and droughts to avoid the impacts water restrictions can have on the community,” it said in a statement.
Melbourne University professor of hydrology and water resources, Rory Nathan, said the Thomson Dam had a storage capacity twice the size of Sydney Harbour.
“It’s got a huge storage capacity, deliberately so, to get us through from one drought to the next,” he said.
But Nathan said climate change meant average conditions were less likely in the future.
“The climate crisis in the water resources sector means we’re swinging from multiple floods and then back to devastating droughts.”
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